Hope the President does a good job for USA

[t-c]

Nahh...Tax everyone in the U.S. 90% so we can all go on welfare.

I don't know about you, but I'm already paying close to 40% rate -- that equates to several hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. But, sure, pass the Trump tax cuts; I'll save a crap-ton of money. I hope you will too. Otherwise you're a sucker to give up a lifetime of free health care, free long-term care, unemployment, job training, pension, etc that people in other countries get from their government, for a few thousand a year. Probably your tax increase would be the same amount of money as you would spend on insurance premiums.

 

[Dancing Fire]

TC
If there is one thing I learn in life is "nothing comes free". The money would have to come from somewhere. I don't mind paying more taxes to educate our kids and help the elderly.

 

[t-c]

I don't know whether you do it deliberately or you're just not reading closely, but you seem to glom onto one word and ignore the idea presented in the post.

TC
If there is one thing I learn in life is "nothing comes free". The money would have to come from somewhere. I don't mind paying more taxes to educate our kids and help the elderly.

Yeah, only those that will benefit you and your family. Typical.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Yeah, only those that will benefit you and your family. Typical.

FYI, My kids are young adults now, so when I say I am willing to pay more taxes to educate our kids does not benefit "my kids"...

 

[Arcadian]

 

[t-c]

FYI, My kids are young adults now, so when I say I am willing to pay more taxes to educate our kids does not benefit "my kids"...

You don't expect to have grandchildren?

 

[Dancing Fire]

You don't expect to have grandchildren?

Soon!

 

[t-c]

Soon!

Like I said, you only support programs that will benefit you and your family. Look, either be consistent with your "I pulled myself and my family by my own bootstrap and so should others" (crap) philosophy and don't ask the government to support education and programs for the elderly OR realize that you did, do, and would like benefits from government (also supported by other people's tax dollars) and stop begrudging others when they do as well. It's like you feel that only you and people like you (whoever they are) are deserving.

I read in the NYTimes about a teacher who was in a serious car accident that left her with neurological damage. She got health insurance through work, but after the accident she lost her job, lost her insurance, and is now on Medicaid. People's lives can change in an instant. Don't support policies based on the best case scenario.

 

[Dancing Fire]

It's like you feel that only you and people like you (whoever they are) are deserving.

I deserve a new car from the government but too bad Bernie did win the election....

 

[Tekate]

Well, the vote is today. My sincere hope is Trump loses but if they just repeal, so be it. Republicans will lose their 'base' over the next 3.5 years and democrats will win.

I deserve a new car from the government but too bad Bernie did win the election....

 

[partgypsy]

Dancing Fire, all the evidence indicates single payer costs LESS per person than our existing healthcare system. No need to increase taxes for it. Plus there is plenty of fat in the Military budget, which Trump wants to increase even though the military did not ask for those increases. It is true that an eye needs to be kept on soc security, medicare and Medicaid long term, but if the politicians did their job, that's a solvable problem as well, as long as they don't keep kicking the can down the road.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Dancing Fire, all the evidence indicates single payer costs LESS per person than our existing healthcare system. No need to increase taxes for it. Plus there is plenty of fat in the Military budget, which Trump wants to increase even though the military did not ask for those increases. It is true that an eye needs to be kept on soc security, medicare and Medicaid long term, but if the politicians did their job, that's a solvable problem as well, as long as they don't keep kicking the can down the road.

Yeah, But how?? ..you should submit your ideas to D.C.

 

[Tekate]

Thank you for asking! There are many fixes and solutions, MF is solidly a middle middle site, neither repub or dem btw.

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/06/19/20-ways-to-fix-social-security-from-the-logical-to.aspx

Yeah, But how?? ..you should submit your ideas to D.C.

 

[Tekate]

And lets not forget the greatest tax increaser, Ronnie Reagan, without his screwups people would have to pay social security tax on their benefit. Blah. Yup but those Richie Rich's they got a huge tax cut but the regular joe, they had to pay taxes on their SSA. Meh.

https://www.ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths2.html
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/08/news/economy/reagan_years_taxes/index.htm
from the above:
As a result of the 1981 and 1986 bills, the top income tax rate was slashed from 70% to 28%.

Yeah, But how?? ..you should submit your ideas to D.C.

 

[Dancing Fire]

T
You know what is so funny?...The Richie Rich's of this country are mostly liberals.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Dem. defector.
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/03/54146...rnor-expected-to-switch-to-gop-at-trump-rally

 

[soxfan]

West Virginia? Are we supposed to be surprised by this?

 

[Arkteia]

People who say "nothing comes free" are probably implying that having no job, being on welfare, and receiving socialized medicine is a person's own fault.

(I have often heard it professionally, in the context of alcoholism or drugs - i.e. people who can not get clean and sober are making bad choices. I know it is most often not so and there is an underlying mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated, that drives people back to their habits. With social issues, it is more complicated, but who we become is not totally our free choice).

Poverty is not a person's choice. My son drove through the deep South this time (cross country) - wanted to see it. There are pockets of richness and poverty, he says, and they are so distinct. So how can a person born in abject poverty, in an area with poor schools and poor social support network, even if he is smart, make all the right choices? How does he even know about all choices, all scholarships, all supports that may be there for him/her? I think people follow some pathways that they see around - when I decided to move from one country to another and start anew, I, too, followed a certain pathway because my friends did exactly the same, and I saw it work for them. We all follow certain ways. Exactly the ones we know. So if people did not find the way to pull themselves our of poverty, don't blame them, perhaps the pocket was too deep.

 

[AGBF]

We all follow certain ways. Exactly the ones we know. So if people did not find the way to pull themselves our of poverty, don't blame them, perhaps the pocket was too deep.

You are really wise, Arkteia. I never thought of of poverty in quite the the way that you put it, as so individualized. Perhaps because I never blamed it on an individual and his choices. But when you made it personal, applying it to your own history, I thought of my own history.

I made my choices, the choices that were to determine where I was to be on the economic ladder, when I was far too young to think for myself (although I then thought I was great free thinker). I did what was expected of me by my class (including the token rebellion). (I did not go to college immediately after high school. I decided to work and live in Boston first. After a semester of that, I decided that college wasn't such a bad idea!)

My point is that by age 22 I had a BA and by age 24 I had my first master's degree. I hardly had time to think about any of this. I was on autopilot. My only choices were whether I wanted to go to law school or to get a Ph.D. I knew i had to be in school! Where else was I supposed to be? After high school, everyone went to graduate school. End of story.

Thank you for shining a light on this matter.

Deb

 

[Dancing Fire]

So if people did not find the way to pull themselves our of poverty, don't blame them, perhaps the pocket was too deep.

Yup, just blame it on society that would be much easier... I didn't go to college b/c I grew up in the ghetto. If the liberals stop making excuses for the poor they might have a chance to get out of poverty.

FYI, most of my friends grew up in the projects and they went to broken down schools, but they ended up going to college and found nice paying jobs. Most of them are retired now. Even if I made it into Harvard and I don't study hard in school I will not graduate. Excuses, excuses...

 

[AGBF]

Yup, just blame it on society that would be much easier... I didn't go to college b/c I grew up in the ghetto. If the liberals stop making excuses for the poor they might have a chance to get out of poverty.

FYI, most of my friends grew up in the projects and they went to broken down schools, but they ended up going to college and found nice paying jobs. Most of them are retired now. Even if I made it into Harvard and I don't study hard in school I will not graduate. Excuses, excuses...

It was just a coincidence that I was born into an educated family and I wound up educated? The real reason I wound up educated is because I am a better person than someone who grew up in a ghetto? Thank you for setting the record straight, Dancing Fire!

But wait! I think I heard something like this once before. It was called "Social Darwinism".

Are you sure you want to be associated with that, DF? It has had awfully bad press in recent years.


"Theory of social selection that attempts to explain the success of certain social groups. Based on the laissez faire doctrine with heavily racial bias, it interprets 'survival of the fittest' concept to mean that only the best adapted (those already well off) survive the 'natural conflict' between social groups and thereby enhance the survival capacity of the remaining society. Popular in the 19th and 20th century Europe and USA and embraced by the Nazis, it has nothing to do with the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-82) or his theory of natural selection, and precedes the publication of his book 'Origin Of Species.'"

Link...http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/Social-Darwinism.html

AGBF

 

[smitcompton]

Hi,

I recently read a study about what characteristic is the most important in determining a positive outcome for students. All of you touched on it in some way(A, Deb, DF). The characteristic is "who your friends are"--not parents- but friends. If your friends say they plan to go to college you will be more likely to try to do the same. It is not income based, but of course many neighborhoods have people with similar incomes and values.

I live in an immigrant neighborhood where most non English speaking parents work in factories. They are a close knit community where all the children go to college. Its amazing! I, myself credit the friends I had along with the school I went to (90% Jewish) where college was the way of the mainstream. My mother did not care if we went to college. We did, my brother and I. We put ourselves through. She never went past the 7th grade, spoke 3 languages, and was excellent with money.

I try to make policy in my head for schools. I do not believe money is the answer, but some values need to be put in schools so the students reinforce one another with the value of learning. Phones won't cut it.

Annette

 

[Dancing Fire]

It was just a coincidence that I was born into an educated family and I wound up educated? The real reason I wound up educated is because I am a better person than someone who grew up in a ghetto? Thank you for setting the record straight, Dancing Fire!

AGBF

Deb
You grew up educated b/c you were willing to learn. If I came home with poor grades in school and I told my parents that the reasons for my poor grades was b/c my school sucks and my teachers sucks. My parents would never accept those reasons as excuses for my poor grades. They'll only blame me for not paying attention in class. A student can attend the best schools in their area, but if the student is not willing to learn then he/she will not receive A's in class.

 

[Arkteia]

You are really wise, Arkteia. I never thought of of poverty in quite the the way that you put it, as so individualized. Perhaps because I never blamed it on an individual and his choices. But when you made it personal, applying it to your own history, I thought of my own history.

I made my choices, the choices that were to determine where I was to be on the economic ladder, when I was far too young to think for myself (although I then thought I was great free thinker). I did what was expected of me by my class (including the token rebellion). (I did not go to college immediately after high school. I decided to work and live in Boston first. After a semester of that, I decided that college wasn't such a bad idea!)

My point is that by age 22 I had a BA and by age 24 I had my first master's degree. I hardly had time to think about any of this. I was on autopilot. My only choices were whether I wanted to go to law school or to get a Ph.D. I knew i had to be in school! Where else was I supposed to be? After high school, everyone went to graduate school. End of story.

Thank you for shining a light on this matter.

Deb

I lived in Boston. Boston makes democrats, doesn't it? (Spoils it for the rest of the country, lol).

Regarding choices and career paths. Where I live there are gifted classes, a special school for super-gifted sponsored by a major company, schools for gifted who can not study the normal way, sponsored by other companies, what not, regular schools, Kaplan courses to prepare for SAT and ACT, and other nice things. Testing IQ in school is normal. If you are smart, you will not fall through the cracks unless fate has dealt you a bad set of genes for addiction.

But what if someone grows up in the area where they do not test IQs, where parents don't take kids to chess schools and swimming classes? What if he has super high IQ and his teacher even says to him he is college material? What if the kid even knows it, that he is smart? But what if he sees no lawyers and doctors in the neighborhood making nice money? What if the best money in the neighborhood are made by selling drugs? (To get to the top in that business you also have to have good IQ, I assume). So it is not even that he is a bad person or makes wrong choices. He sees that he is smart enough to do well in the career path that is offered around. And he may be reading and self-educating, he may be autodidact after all, but there is no one to tell him, look, here is how you get out of this ghetto... here are scholarships for your group, here are funds, this is whom you have to write to, etc, etc. Another types of role models these kids might see are athletes and rappers, and some may make it into athletes, but very few.

(Or not necessarily by selling drugs... I know some kids, super-smart, trying to make it in music business... hopeless idea, of course, but they know someone who made it...)

And we have areas in the country where schools are not even available. On Lake Chelan, there is one small village accessible only by water. They have a school for all kids, with one teacher teaching all classes. For high school, kids are sent out to live with relatives. I have never heard of anyone from that area making it big.

 

[ABKIS]

Dem. defector.
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/03/54146...rnor-expected-to-switch-to-gop-at-trump-rally

He was also a Rep and Independent at one point. But since he's changing from Dem to Rep, ya, now it matters.

 

[Tekate]

to you, not to me as a liberal, who cares the state has been red for years.

He was also a Rep and Independent at one point. But since he's changing from Dem to Rep, ya, now it matters.

 

[Dancing Fire]

He was also a Rep and Independent at one point. But since he's changing from Dem to Rep, ya, now it matters.

True, I think he is a Rep all along.

 

[t-c]

Great. Apparently US intelligence officials believe that North Korea has miniaturized nuclear warhead (link to WaPo article). What will Trump going to do? What will he tweet? I just hope he understands the situation, our options, and the consequences.

I feel ill

 

[Dancing Fire]

It pays to be an undocumented immigrant in S.F.
Sanctuary city?...

http://www.sfexaminer.com/man-receive-190000-sf-sanctuary-city-violation/

 

[Dancing Fire]

Great. Apparently US intelligence officials believe that North Korea has miniaturized nuclear warhead (link to WaPo article). What will Trump going to do? What will he tweet? I just hope he understands the situation, our options, and the consequences.

I feel ill

TC...IYO, what are the options on N. Korea.?